David Coe: The Dark-Eyes War

I'm sick! he thought, fear gripping him by the throat. I'm dying!

He'd believed all this nonsense about a white-hair plague, and now he was going to die of the pestilence out here alone. The bitterness of this irony actually brought tears to his eyes.

For several panic-filled moments, he tried to decide if he was truly dying or if he was just a fool. In the end, he was forced to conclude that he was a fool and that everything he was feeling could be traced to his nerves rather than some disease. He forced himself to get up and crawl out of the cart. He had trouble keeping his balance at first, but the cool air steadied and calmed him. After a few long, deep breaths he began to feel better.

He took a drink of water, which also helped. A bit of food might have been a good idea, too, but he wasn't quite ready for that.

Stam started toward Wislo, who was grazing a short distance away, and noticed immediately that the old beast looked agitated. He was switching his tail wildly. He held his head high and had his ears laid flat, and he was scraping his hoof in the dirt. Stam stopped and scanned the horizon, a different sort of fear taking hold of him.

"What is it?" he asked in a low voice. "What's got you upset?" Wislo shook his head and whinnied.

Stam gazed westward for another few moments, but he saw nothing. He was convinced, however, that something was out there. It could have been wild dogs, which moved south out of the highlands in packs as the Snows approached. It also could have been the Fal'Borna.

He'd never been one to place much faith in his own intuition, but it seemed too great a coincidence that he should wake up feeling as he did and then find Wislo in such a state.

"They've found us, haven't they?" he said. "Or they will have soon enough."

He made his decision in that moment. If the Fal'Borna caught up with him as he was driving his cart toward the Silverwater, they'd assume the worst. But perhaps he could deceive them.

He led Wislo back to the cart, put the harness on him, and climbed into his seat. And then he started westward, back the way he had come. Perhaps if the Qirsi encountered an Eandi merchant making his way into their land, they'd believe that he had been in the sovereignties all this time. Surely they wouldn't be able to blame him for anything that had befallen their people during the past turn.

This was Stam's hope, anyway.

Before he and Wislo had covered even half a league, he spotted the riders. There were at least a dozen of them, and they were driving their mounts hard, heading due east on a line a bit north of the one Stam had taken. They seemed to spot him just a moment or two after he spotted them, and they turned right away, thundering toward his cart, their white hair flying like battle pennons.

They reached him in mere moments, reining their horses to a halt a short distance in front of him and brandishing spears.

"Stop right there, dark-eye," one of the men called to him.

He was broad and muscular, with golden skin and bright yellow eyes. He might have been a few years older than his fellow riders, but otherwise there was little that distinguished one of the riders from the others. For all the years Stain had spent among the Qirsi clans, learning their ways and taking their gold, he had never figured out how to tell one Fal'Borna from another, or one J'Balanar from another of his kind.

"Greetings," he said, raising a hand. He was pleased to hear how steady his voice sounded.

"What are you doing in Fal'Borna land, Eandi?"

Stam let his hand fall to his side. He thought this an odd question, but he tried to keep his tone light. "I'm a merchant."

"Do you think we're fools? Of course you're a merchant. But what are you doing here?"

He opened his mouth to answer, hesitated, then repeated, "I'm a merchant."

The Qirsi and the rider next to him shared a look.

"Where have you come from?" the second man asked.

Stam had never been a very good liar, so he thought it best to keep his answers simple. He almost said, "Aelea," but that would have put him too close to Mettai lands. Instead, he said, "Stelpana."

For some reason, this seemed to pique the Fal'Borna's interest. "Where in Stelpana?"

He felt a bead of sweat trickle from his right temple. "Nowhere in particular. I just visited a few villages along the east bank of the Silverwater."

"And how many days ago did you cross?"

Stam hesitated, chewing his lip. He wasn't exactly sure how far he'd come since leaving H'Nivar, and he didn't know how many days' travel he was from the wash.

"I… maybe… I don't know. Three days?"

Again the Fal'Borna exchanged looks.

"Three days," the first man repeated.

Stam nodded. His mouth had gone dry.

"What goods are you carrying?"

The one question he'd been dreading most.

"The usual. Blankets, blades, cloth, some jewelry, a few flasks of wine."

"Baskets?"

"A couple, yes."

Their bearing changed. Clearly they'd already been suspicious of him; now they appeared to grip their spears tighter, to regard him with open hostility.

"Where did you get them?" the first man demanded in a hard voice.

"I traded for them with another merchant."

"His name?"

"I… I don't remember. It wasn't someone I'd met before."

The Fal'Borna frowned. "Where was this?"

He felt as if he were sinking in mud. Every lie he told seemed to compound the last one, and he was having more and more trouble remembering what he had said a moment before.

"One of the villages," he said. "In Stelpana."

"You've had them long?"

"No. Just a few days."

"I take it these are Mettai baskets."

He nodded. "Yes."

"Why would you bring them into Fal'Borna lands now?"

"T-to trade. I'm a merchant. That's what I do. But I can leave. I can turn back, if you want me to."

The first man shook his head. "Get off your cart."

"But, I-"

"Off!" the man said, his voice like a smith's sledge.

Stam hurriedly climbed off the cart, his legs trembling. The Fal'Borna nodded to two of his riders. Immediately the men jumped off their mounts, strode over to Wislo, and unharnessed him.

"What are you doing?" Stam asked.

"We're going to burn your cart, and we don't wish to harm your animal."

"No!" Stam said. "You can't!"

The man grinned darkly. "No? Perhaps you'd prefer that we search your cart. Perhaps you'd like us to handle those baskets you're carrying. Isn't that why you brought them here?"

Did they know that he'd been in their land all this time? Did they know what had happened to the septs he'd visited?

"I. I don't mean your people any harm. I never have. You must believe me."

"I don't. If you've just come from Stelpana, then you know that your people and mine will soon be at war, if we're not already."

Stam's eyes widened.

"That's right, Eandi. We know about the army your people are gathering on the other side of the Silverwater. We also know about your alliance with the Mettai."

Stam had no idea what to say. He wasn't even sure that he believed the man. An army? An alliance with the Mettai? It made no sense. Why would the Eandi sovereignties attack the Fal'Borna? Why would his people risk the resumption of the Blood Wars?

The hatred that divided Qirsi from Eandi was as old as Qirsar and Ean, the gods who had created the people of this land. The two gods-who were both brothers and rivals-had instilled in the people their enmity for each other. Eandi fear of Qirsi magic was rooted in the earth, like the mountains of Aelea and the woodlands of Tordjanne. The Qirsi's contempt for the Eandi was as fundamental to life on this plain as water and air. The Blood Wars had been over for a century, but the truce that followed had done nothing to change the way white-hairs and dark-eyes regarded one another.